Spectre

Now that Dame Judi has shaken her off her cinematic mortal coil, the new "M" (Ralph Fiennes) is facing increasing pressure from whizzkid "C" (Andrew Scott) to shut down the 007 programme and rely on an international, computer generated, system of intelligence gathering. Needless to say, "007" (Daniel Craig) has his doubts about this and after a manhunt to Rome (via Mexico) that must have cost billions, he alights on an exclusive gathering of the criminal great and good working for the eponymous organisation. Along the way, he manages to enlist "Q" (Ben Whishaw) and "Moneypenny" (Naomie Harris) in his quest to find the daughter of his old nemesis "Mr White". She - "Madeleine" (Léo Seydoux) may well know how to help him thwart the ambitions of this secretive and deadly organisation before it is all too late. There are plenty of (extended) action scenes here and the gadgets work well enough, but the story is thin and the characterisations lacking. The dynamic lacks jeopardy - we know who is likely to be behind the cunning plots right from the start and neither Fiennes nor Scott bring much to the party. Indeed the latter is really rather poor. What menace there is, is delivered via some underwhelming contributions from Dave Bautista's "Hinx" and from the appearances of Christoph Waltz, but they are all too infrequent to bolster the storyline before an ending that was, frankly, ridiculous - even by "Quantum of Solace" (2008) standards. The producers seem to be constantly trying to reinvent "Bond" without realising that the more they compromise the standards of the story and weaken the traditional characters, the less impact the franchise has when surrounded by many others of this genre that benefit from stronger writing and a more charismatic star. This is shorter than many of Daniel Craig's other outings as Ian Fleming's master spy, for which I was grateful because this is all rather mediocre from start to finish.